You might have seen a delicacy known as “century eggs” on Chinese restaurant menus or on the shelves of Asian markets and wondered, “Are those eggs really 100 years old?” (Answer: They aren’t. It actually only takes about a month to make them, using a pickling liquid made from lye, salt, and water, and then rolling the eggs in mud and wrapping them in rice husks.) In a recently excavated tomb in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, however, archaeologists found a jar filled with eggs dating all the way back to the Spring and Autumn Period (770–ca. 475 B.C.), making these incredible edibles at least 2,500 years old. Sadly, only the shells remain. 

When contractor Pedro Archila drove his excavator into a large earthen mound outside the central Guatemalan city of Coban in May 2018, he inadvertently exposed the remains of the largest figurine workshop ever discovered in the Maya world. A team led by archaeologist Brent Woodfill of Winthrop University and Erin Sears of the Smithsonian Institution subsequently excavated the site, called Aragon, and are now analyzing its more than 400 fragments of figurines and figurine molds. 

The workshop appears to have been active between A.D. 750 and 900, suggesting that a community of artists thrived in the area even as nearby cities, including Cancuen some 50 miles to the north, declined or were destroyed during a period of turmoil. The figurines were likely used as diplomatic gifts and trade items, says Woodfill, and may help scholars learn more about the political landscape in the region at the end of the Maya Classic period (ca. A.D. 250–900). “We don’t know very much about the Classic period and the beginnings of the Postclassic period in this area,” he says. “Now that we’ve identified this figurine workshop, it shows that there was a significant population here that was heavily involved with trade and exchange.” 

At a 4,500-year-old necropolis in northern India, archaeologists discovered a grave containing the remains of a man and a woman who seem to have been buried at the same time. The burial is one of some 60 graves that have been recently unearthed near a settlement known today as Rakhigarhi. Rakhigarhi was one of the largest cities of the Indus Valley, or Harappan, civilization, which flourished from 2600 to 1900 B.C. in what is now Pakistan and northern India. The couple were interred in a pit along with ceramic vessels and an agate bead. “The skeletal remains of both individuals were well preserved,” says Deccan College archaeologist Vasant Shinde, who led the excavations. “The manner in which they were buried, with the male facing toward the female, could commemorate their lasting affection, even after death.” Analysis of the skeletons showed that the two were between 21 and 35 years old when they died. They are the only known Harappan couple to have been buried together in the same grave.